Bi NUS Update

Sharon Stacey, 22, is a student at Barnsley University and Bi Officer of the NUS national women’s campaign. BCN caught up with her in January…

We have previously had an interview with Bethan Griffiths, women’s place bi rep for the NUS’s LGBT campaign. You’re bi rep for the NUS Women’s campaign, and also bi rep for the NUS Black Students campaign. Clearly there are significant areas of overlap between those three positions - is there any tradition of them working together?

Yes... if I can just clarify, I hold three positions out of the four liberation campaigns -
Womens committee: Bi Rep
Black Students Committee: Black LGBT (womens rep)
LGBT Committee: Black LGBT (open place rep)

As you can see I hold the same position on two of the committees and they do overlap. I don’t tend to separate the three when I’m doing my work for the campaigns because they all deal with the same issues - Race, Sex, and Sexuality.

I won’t go as far to say there has been any long-standing tradition of the campaigns working together, but the positions I’ve taken automatically joins the campaigns as one. I guess whoever takes the post of the reps are suppose to liase with each other, and in my case I liase with myself!!

What do you see as the most pressing and most addressable issues for bi women and black bi students? How welcoming are LG[B][T] societies around the country these days?
The issues I’ve found that most bi students face is the pressure of belonging to a certain type of sexuality... choosing to be gay or straight and feeling guilty for “sitting on the fence”. The pressure of having to make up their minds and choose is quite traumatic for most people. There have been a few incidents where officers in LGBT Societies make bi students feel excluded, and some non-LGBT societies act as if they are not ready for another category of sexuality. I remember one straight student said to me...” we’ve just got round to the idea that there are gay and lesbian people, but why should people have to put up with a another sexuality!”

I have done workshop sessions on multiple identities too, which tackles about the dual oppression that black LB women can face, not only racism, sexism but homophobia from straight peers (and biphobia from LGBT peers!) I always encourage our black LB sisters that we are a walking liberation campaign in terms of NUS and we should celebrate that. Most of my work tries to challenge this by breaking the myth that bi people are confused and haven’t made their minds up yet. Very frustrating!!!!

On being elected to those positions what did you aim to do while in post?
I’ve been on the black students committee for two years, but the rest has only been for a year. Tthere have been several projects that I’ve set up. The one I’m most proud of was the national Black LGBT Day where we got speakers from the black LGBT community to hold discussion on racism, homophobia & biphobia, religion & faith, BNP and sexism. I understand that this was the first in its kind to have such an event, linking the liberation campaigns together.

Other work im heavily involved in is anti-fascism campaigning. I feel it’s really crucial that LGBT/black/women students join the fight to demolish these fascists. We can see how people are being affected by the BNP website which features a campaign against the forthcoming LGBT history month in schools this February. Whilst the atrocities of the Holocaust are being remembered, this latest attempt by the BNP to promote hatred is an important reminder of where homophobia and fascism have led. This not only goes on LGBT people but they have hate for black/Asian, women and the disabled.

Specifically, my jobshare and I are planing to do a postcard campaign on breaking the stereotypes on bisexuality.... a kind of myths and facts that exists in society. Unfortunately we don’t have as much time as we would like and this project might not evolve, but we’re going to see realistically how much time we have to complete it.

As Women’s campaign bi rep you have a job-share arrangement with another officer. How has that worked out?
It has its good points and bad. initially we thought it was fantastic that we live at separate ends of the country (I’m in Yorkshire and my jobshare in Brighton) so we can have out own territory to work in, but we soon came to realise that we hardly saw each other throughout the year. We have talked to each other on the phone to discuss NUS matters but if you want to have a good hour’s meeting over the phone, it leaves a dent in your pocket for top-up credit! We soon found out a long distance relationship is not very appropriate for getting things done! But the good points are when we do meet up, we make up for lost time by organising various events for the women’s campaign.

Turning to the bi movement, from the research work of the Bi Academic network, it seems to be disproportionately white. Why do you think this is?
I think this is the same in the LGBT movement in general. For example, at our national LGBT conference there would be 200 white delegates and only 3 black delegates. I’ve found there are many reasons for this, like not wanted to be ‘outed’ by attending a national conference (this might be due to religious reasons, family restrictions or just pure prejudice from other students), having no interest (or not aware) of the political issues that might affect them. It can be quite frustrating for me because we do exist, but they don’t make up the numbers in terms of NUS conferences. Whenever I go out on the scene in London, I see soooo many young black lesbian and bisexual women (and men) and I do feel like saying “hi... I’m your national representative for NUS, why don’t you come to conference next month !!!!!”.....maybe not.

Well, it beats “I’m editor of BCN you know” as a chat-up line. It is nearly the end of your term of office. What do you wish you had done differently?
I wish my jobshare and I could have done more projects together for our Bi students. It all comes down to time management I suppose. I’ve finally learnt my lesson to not go for too many elections at once, ’cause if you win, it can be triple your time ...and work!

How will the handover work to your successors and how should we and our readers get in touch? We’d love to keep them in the loop with the bi movement, activist network, and so forth.
Well the next elections for the position of Bi Officer is at the national women’s conference in Coventry on 13-15th March. (please email women@nus.org.uk for more info). All people have to do is write a manifesto about why they would like to take the position on the LGBT committee, then see how many people vote for ya! I would say it is hard work and you’re accountable for all of the bi students across the UK, but the experience is priceless so I would encourage anyone to go for it.